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AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE B - CRIME WRITING ATONEMENT NOTES - Summary of Part I
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AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE B - CRIME WRITING ATONEMENT NOTES Summary of Part I Notes
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AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE ESSAY - Atonement – Ian McEwan ‘McEwan suggests Briony’s crime can easily be forgiven because she is just a child
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AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE B - A* ESSAY - Atonement – Ian McEwan ‘Paul Marshall is a criminal with nothing to redeem him.’
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Part I - Briony's CrimeCHAPTER I
The novel is set in an interwar period of history where Europe was in great political turmoil. The
changes to the family social status throughout the book is reflective of the effect of the war.
Briony Tallis has written a melodrama which she wants to perform for her brother.
Intertextual Link - Another novel is set in a country house during a hot summer involved in
child misunderstanding of an adult sexual relationship is LP Hartley's 'The Go Between'.
Events are related to us by an anonymous third person narrator - although the voice in
many passages is that of Briory. Her point of view is ostentatiously literary and often
flamboyant. By the first page we view the full extravagant extent of her literary ambitions
which is laid bare in the Trials of Arabella that she has written.
Briony's melodrama is intended to 'inspire...terror, relief and instruction, in that order' an
illusion to Aristotle's poetics where Aristotle stated the nature of tragedy is to inspire
terror and pity.
The voice describing Briony appears to be that of an omniscient narrator who has insight
into her mental state presenting the characters own views and realm of consciousness.
The language holds a great deal of pent up energy and a potential for disaster. It will later
transpire that Briory's life and character conceal suppressed imaginative energy which will
be released with catastrophic results.
Briony's life is shown to be ordered and harmonious although she has a social advantage
there is nothing interesting in her life. This creates a narrative tension as it only become
apparent much later that because there was no real secrets in Briony's life it led her to
fashion them from the people around her.
The language of the passage suggests the insights of an experienced writer although it
expresses a 13 year olds dissatisfaction at her work.
Briony is not wilfully cruel but is instead astonishingly thoughtless and inconsiderate.
Robbie believes her cruel and vindictive. She manages to create destruction through her
desire to make everything neat. This supposedly prevents her from doing wrong. This
desire for order is presented in the neatness of her room and pattern of the stories
narratives.
A writers earlier work is called juvenilia which gives clues to have they develop later.
CHAPTER II
The narrative voice changes in this chapter to Cecilia as we see events through Cecilia. She has
picked flowers for the guest room which is being prepared for Paul Marshall. We view the
tension between Cecilia and Robbie as they break a vase with important family history.
'The Abyssinia Question' Briory dismisses was a topical issue in 1935. The League of
Nations failed to protect Abyssinia from the invasion of Mussolini's Italy. This sets
Atonement very much in historical context.
, Much of the action in the scene revolves around Cecilia collecting flowers in a valuable
vase that has dramatic family history. The vase has been presented to her father's brother
Clem as a token of gratitude from a French village he helped liberate in the war.
The extensive description makes the chapter move slowly. Time is expended on,
recounting and explaining the smallest details. This contributes to the languid even
sluggish air of the hot summer days. Cecilia tries to break out of this languor herself by
plunging into the water and refreshing the flowers but her slow prose undermines these
attempts.
Later events will make the drama of the vase look absurd as by the end of the book we are
told that the vase is smashed beyond repair by Betty the cook when the house was being
reorganised. In this scene the vase's importance is exaggerated as nothing else is
happening. The incident is slightly surreal and typical of the unexpected and resonant acts
that happen in McEwans novels.
The only event in this chapter is the breaking of the vase. By explaining the vases history
Cecilia gives the vase a mythical status and the build up makes the accident more
dramatic and Cecilia's carefully calculated response milks it for every last bit of impact.
She chooses her actions carefully and we glimpse something of her sister Briory's over
dramatisation.
Fielding's novels are parodies of Richardson's more serious works so the fact that Cecilia
claims that she would rather read Fielding than Richardson shows her desire for fun rather
than study.
When Cecilia identifies her room with 'stews' it links to Shakespeare's brothel. This
alongside the reference Clarissa hints at Cecilia's developing sexuality.
CHAPTER III
Briory struggles to get the cousins to rehearse the play and while pausing the rehearsals she
witnesses the fountains scene.
Briony reflects that there is no absolute meaning in an event but only what it means to
different people. Briony believes that as a reader there is a need to acknowledge
characters "separate minds". Briory's consideration of other people's feelings and
consciousness is called contemplation of the 'theory of mind'.
The Triton fountain in Piazza Barberini by Bernini 1643 has a dark history as in the 18th
century unidentified dead bodies were displayed in front of it as the people of Rome
attempted to recognise them. The fountain in Atonement also has a dark role in Briony's
story.
Briony's voice is used once again to reveal more of her character painting a portrait of
adolescence. At one moment she reflects on being mature, taking care of her appearance
but later wiping her dirty hands on her muslin dress.
This retreat from seeing herself as the point or centre of the scene echoes the gradual
recognition that a child is not in fact the centre of the universe.
Atonement is written by Briony causing the narrative viewpoint to be deliberately
complexed and troublesome.
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